Hurricane Katrina

First off, the good news: None of our partner bakeries have been closed by Hurricane Katrina, which made landfall on the Gulf Coast this morning. That means that all of our products are available for delivery.

However, depending on where you would like things delivered, there may be some difficulties during the week, particularly east of the Mississippi River between today and Wednesday. We expect that deliveries to the hardest-hit areas will be impossible for the next 48 hours.

If you would like to send something to Louisiana, Mississippi, or Alabama this week, I recommend checking with the shipping companies ahead of time to ensure that they can make the delivery.

Change of Seasons

We got our first chilly night yesterday, a reminder that heat and humidity will soon be just another New England Memory. This is my favorite time of year in these parts, as cool nights settle in and the trees explode with autumn colors. There's also the fall harvests of apples, pumpkins, and native corn to enjoy.

The first sign of fall appears on the site today, in the form of Back to School Mini Cookies from our friends at Supercookie. Later this week, look for a preview of the many fall flavors from Supercookie, Divine Delights, and Bittersweet Pastries.

We'll also be discontinuing some of our summer items until next year. If you like Spring Mini Cookies or Golf Mini Cookies, they will only be available until August 31.

Links at Last

The great link migration of Ought-Five is complete. You'll find Gift Baskets nestled among the various Shop by Person categories. Now if I could just find a way to move petits fours to the top level navigation...might happen, might not.

The only task remaining in our cleanup efforts is to optimize all the product pictures so they look extra tasty. Those will roll out over the next week, and then something very big and exciting will put a final flourish on all the small changes that we've made since April.

Meanwhile, some British researchers have analyzed the way men and women look at Web sites and found that a majority of British university sites have a stronger appeal to men. I'm wondering if this isn't true of the Web as a whole, where modular design is the norm.

Good Time for Changes

Has it really been a week since my last post? It's been a little hectic here. August is a slow month in the baking business--between vacations and double-digit heat, most folks aren't longing for cake--so we're taking advantage of the chance to make a few changes to the site.

You'll notice our new Shop by Bakery category, which was something I introduced to make managing our catalog easier. Before I had to search through all our categories to find the complete product list for a single bakery. Now everything is in one place, which makes my life much easier. It's also good if you like a product from a certain bakery--now you can see everything they offer in one place.

Keep an eye out for a couple of changes this week. "Candies and Chocolates" will be renamed "Confections," and is now the home for our Chocolate Dipped Strawberries. Gift Baskets will be removed as a category and the baskets will be relocated into appropriate Shop by Person categories.

All of this is in preparation for our coming redesign. I reviewed the first draft of it yesterday, and it's spectacular. It should be online very soon, and it will make using our site even easier.

While you wait, you can check out the newly redesigned staples.com, which has been rebuilt based on the input of thousands of users. I do find it easier to navigate, but I'm surprised that they aren't displaying more products.

And finally, a little heads-up to a new competitor I've found in baked goods e-tailing: Don't let the Postal Service catch you shipping those matches by air with your Birthday Cake Party Kit. That's illegal.

Take Two, They're Small

You might see the same items duplicated in our on-site search results over the next day or so. That's because we really want you to buy those items.

Actually, it's part of the migration to a new catalog structure that should be complete by Thursday. The summer heat is no friend to bakery sales, so it's a good time to shuffle things around.

And to the nice folks at United Parcel Service, I love you. I really do. But I'd like to know why you kept dumping shipments at the Louisville distribution hub when it was shut down last Thursday and Friday. In this automated, tracked, computer and GPS world of ours, surely there's something else you can do with packages besides let them pile up while you wait for the weather to clear.

Some of those packages contain perishables. Either take a lesson from the power grid folks and build in some failsafes, or let your customers know when these situations arise so that we can make alternate shipping arrangements.

Problems at the Pyramid?

Somebody's having a little fun over at the News & Media page of mypyramid.org. The article selection is clearly biased, and the stories are presented with fun headlines like "Why Uncle Sam Tells You What to Eat," "Industry Applauds New Food Guidance System as Unscientific," and my personal favorite, "A Plant-Based Diet Is a Healthy Choice--For Sissies."

Maybe whoever's over there is tired of those Wheat Council folks walking around like they own the place.

After you have a laugh, you can try to find some of our products on Froogle. I'd suggest searching for Stollen, which returns fewer art prints than other bakery terms. It's a good service, but I'd like to see a level of category organization thrown at it, so that I'm not wading through books and posters when I want to find food. Try the Grid View, which eliminates descriptions but makes it much easier to see your choices.

Nonsecure Items

A rare double-update from me today. There's a little glitch in the site that I wanted you to be aware of.

If you enter a Checkout page, you might encounter an error message that says "This page contains both secure and nonsecure items." This is not a security flaw, and there's no need to worry about it. We've got a URL in the code pointing to an address on the site as an http rather than an https. This problem should be fixed in the next 24 hours. In the meantime, feel safe ordering from us.

Now if the message said, "This page contains insecure items," it would just be talking about me.

What Your Food Is Telling You

Here's a modern take on the Stamp Act that even Bostonians can enjoy: The Wheat Foods Council is calling attention to the new whole-grain recommendations in the Food Guide Pyramid with three Whole Grain stamps that you'll soon be seeing at retail.

The new stamps classify whole-grain foods into three categories: Good, which offers a half serving of whole grain; Excellent, which provides a full serving of whole grain; and 100%, which contains a full serving of whole grain and no other grains, which I guess are considered junk grains now.

And here come the angry farmers to complain about that last sentence. Just kidding, folks. Put the pitchforks down.

We're taking a hard look at what whole-grain products to add to the site, and we'll be using the stamps to identify them when they appear.

Meanwhile, there's a new war on stickers shaping up in the produce aisle, with the announcement that a pilot program will test laser-etching of fresh fruits and vegetables. Everything from bar codes to advertising could be on the horizon, but for now the etching is limited to the price look up (PLU) and manufacturer.

There's some information to be found in those PLUs, if you know how to read them. If you see a four-digit code, it means the produce was conventionally grown. If the PLU has five digits beginning with a 9, it's organically grown, and if it has five digits beginning with an 8, it's genetically modified.

Those numbers can be found on the stickers on all produce the next time you're at the supermarket. If the laser etching turns out to be more effective, maybe we can burn those whole grain stamps right on the bread and muffins.

New Cookies, New Category

Filed under Stuff You Need to Know: I'm rearranging our catalog to make it easier to use both for you and for us. That means you'll see some small changes in our categories over the coming weeks, which will be very annoying for anyone who bookmarked the pages or follows an old link from a search engine. You'll get our home page instead of the page you expected. Check the links on the right and you should be able to find what you want (or else I should be fired). I'll also post updates here at the BakeryBlog whenever a change is made.

This week, say goodbye to Celebration Specialty Desserts and hello to Birthday Specialties. The new page has double the number of products the old page had--four instead of two!

That's not terribly exciting, but I think you'll love those two new products, a Blue Birthday Cookie and Pink Birthday Cookie from our friends at Supercookie. These are a terrific alternative to birthday cake or a great gift to send someone who already has a cake. Please send those bandits with the cookie bouquets a message by ordering these.

As for the why behind the catalog shuffling, there's two reasons. First, we don't organize our products by manufacturer in our back end, which means I have to spend a lot of time hunting things down to make changes. Our Bakery List makes it much easier for customers to find products than it is for us to find them.

Second, I'm unhappy with the current catalog organization. I doubt that Chocolate Dipped Strawberries and Gift Baskets warrant their own categories, and Shop by Price becomes irrelevant when you add on the shipping charges.

I'm in "Read the customers' minds" mode to figure out what all of the new categories will be. If you've got some thoughts, I'd love to hear them.

And You Thought the Cola Wars Were Bad

Interstate Bakeries and Sara Lee are preparing to throw down in a battle royale over whole white bread, according to the tale of the tape in today's Chicago Tribune. It seems that ConAgra has found a way to mill whole wheat so that it can be baked into loaves that look like white bread while retaining some of the nutritional benefits of whole wheat bread.

Again the awe-inspiring influence of the American Wheat Council and the new Food Guide Pyramid creep into our daily lives. You can even download a free version of the Pyramid for your PDA to tell the skeptical Atkins adherents in your life about the benefits of whole wheat.

Both Interstate and Sara Lee are hoping to corner the fickle youth market with a product that kids will eat and parents will feel good about serving. Expect the battle to heat up in a supermarket near you by the end of this year.

Meanwhile, I'm wondering if you nice folks in readerland would like to see some whole wheat breads on our site. Yes? No? Let me know.

Baked with Platinum, I Guess

I was out and about on the Web last week, checking out the competition. It turns out that cookie bouquets are a popular item on the search engines. I thought it would be nice if we carried those.

Then I started investigating the cookie bouquet sites. One wanted 90 bucks for a dozen cookies. Another was asking $79. These are large by cookie standards, and hand-decorated to boot, but I still find it a great stretch to charge that much, plus shipping, of course, for a dozen cookies.

If you're thinking of sending someone cookies, it's because that person likes cookies. Wouldn't you rather send them a lot of pretty cookies than a handful dressed up to look like flowers?

Go check out our offerings from Supercookie. You can send three tubs of our mini-cookies, around 69 cookies total, for less than you'd spend for one dozen of those bouquet cookies. That includes shipping, and the last time I left a tub of these on my desk I had to hide it after an hour to keep my coworkers from eating them all.

Start Hoarding Those Hi-Hos

Bad news if you live in the northeast: A fire in Wayne, New Jersey has disabled power to a plant owned by Interstate Bakeries. Conservative estimates are that the plant won't be up and baking for five days, setting the stage for the Great Twinkie Drought of Ought-Five.

Should you find your snacking interrupted, the Keebler folks would like to remind you that their reliance on elven technology ensures a constant supply of cookies to your local grocer. Or you could try our new Biscotti Sampler, which contains four flavors of delicious gourmet biscotti for just $9.95. I'll confess my bias on this product, because I'm hooked on the Chocolate Hazelnut.

From Joy to Despair

Our thoughts and prayers go out to the victims of the London transit bombings and their families. Such acts have no place in civilized society.

Our Privacy Policy

A few interesting stats this morning courtesy of my subscription to Internet Retailer:

Because a site's Privacy Policy was unclear,

• 64% of customers decided not to purchase
• 67% of visitors decided not to register

This comes from a new Harris Interactive survey conducted for a string-of-words think tank associated with another string-of-words think tank and Deloitte & Touche LLP. The survey also found that 20% of respondents were victims of identity theft and 87% were aware of recent consumer data thefts.

Since this is an issue with so many of you out there, I'd like to restate our Privacy Policy in the simplest language possible:

We don't share your information with anyone. Ever. For any reason. Except to complete your transaction.

That means we need to pass your credit card to a third-party authorization company and give your shipping address to FedEx, UPS, or the Postal Service to deliver your products.

When you order from us or register as a customer, we do add your name to our mailing list so that we can tell you about new products, specials, and seasonal gift ideas. Our mailing program is managed through Vertical Response, a leading provider of e-mailing services that maintains aggressive antispam policies. If you wish to unsubscribe, just click the link at the bottom of the e-mails we send and you'll never receive the e-mail again.

In short, we value you too much as a customer to ever jeopardize our relationship with you. We treat your information with an abundance of care and concern, as if it was our own.

Can We Agree on the Vichysoisse to Start?

The G8 is off to a less than auspicious start, with national pride taking a hit over French President Jacques Chriac's comments about British cuisine. Setting a tone of optimism and cooperation that is sure to be the hallmark of this week's meetings, Chirac was quoted as saying of the Brits, "We can't trust people who have such bad food."

I'll take filet mignon over fish and chips, thank you, but Chirac went a little too far when he claimed that mad cow disease was England's sole contribution to European agriculture.

German Chancellor Gerard Schroeder one-upped the French president by insulting Scotland, which plays host to this year's G8 summit, saying, "I am not a friend of salmon and I hope I get a decent steak."

Apparently the message of Saturday's Live8 concerts is lost on these gentlemen. My advice to the chefs at Gleneagles is to serve nothing for the duration of the summit, then see who feels like complaining.

Freshness Under Attack

Some food for thought found its way to my Inbox this morning, courtesy of the nice folks at Internet Retailer. Michigan State's Last Mile Supply Chain Center ran a survey asking people what they thought about online grocers.

The news isn't good. 200 customers of three online grocers were surveyed, and they said that the grocery sites have become harder to use since 2003, and one grocer was faulted for a site that loads slowly. (I'd link, but it's a subscription-based article.)

The article closed with this cheerful thought: "The study also found that customers believed that the quality of products available online had declined at each retailer compared to products purchased directly from their stores."

Now the key word in that sentence is believed. The food from both sources could have been equally good, but if the customer perceives a difference, that's a problem. Though the details of the study haven't been published, I'll go out on a limb and say we're comparing unprocessed foods like meat and produce and not cans of soup.

If you're selling food, I think there are three things that need to be stressed, in this order: Quality, freshness, and taste. I don't think you get as far as taste in the customer's mind until he or she is satisfied that the quality and freshness standards have been met.

I've said before that Americans take freshness for granted, and in the case of an established relationship with a brand or seller, I believe that's true. However, we are trained from childhood to seek out fresh foods, and even though that process may slip into a subconscious acceptance of something familiar, it's waiting like a coiled snake to hit the panic button when a product seems a little off. One bad bag of chips might not keep a customer from coming back, but it gets the hackles up, and a second bad bag is the end of the trust.

In the case of online food sales, not only do we have the basic concerns of providing quality, freshness, and taste, but the additional need to promote, sell, and deliver what is essentially a blind item to our customers, understanding that any glitches or imperfections in our online and delivery systems can negatively impact the customer's perception of our products.

In other words, if the site loads slowly, is frequently offline, or offers substandard features, we can inadvertently trip the freshness trigger in the customer's mind, following the rationale of, "If they can't get this right, then how good can the food be?" Add in some shipping delays--the one aspect of this business that we can never control--and you've got a customer with diminished expectations evaluating the product. Even if the product is perfect, the hassle of getting it can lead the customer to conclude that it isn't that good.

Now add the friends and family factor. Unhappy customer tells everyone she knows about her disappointment, and their own freshness triggers trip. The result is wary eyes looking at online catalogs.

As food retailers, it is an obligation to deliver the best possible experience online and in the customer's home, so that we can minimize any shipping problems we encounter. That means responding to customer concerns about our sites in a timely and supportive manner, so that we can all benefit from increased customer confidence.

Cakes on Holiday

If you're looking for Original Boston Coffee Cakes, please be patient. The company is taking the week of July 4 off, so we've temporarily marked all their products as Out of Stock in our system.

Their products aren't displayed on our site right now, but they will return on July 6. In the meantime, could I suggest some nice croissants?

Summertime and Other Acts of God

The nice folks in Chicago have been putting up with some extreme heat. Most people don't like heat waves, and cheesecakes like them even less. As a result of the temperatures and expected severe weather, I've been advised by JR Bakery that they will be unable to ship any cheesecakes today. They expect to resume shipping tomorrow, and in the meantime, all of the cakes from Bittersweet Pastries are available for overnight delivery.

There's no way to plan for these events, short of asterisking every page in the site with the text, "Excepting Acts of God." That's a term your insurance agent might use if you file a claim after lightning hits your house.

We rely on the expertise of our partner bakeries to determine when shipping is and isn't feasible. Up here in the Boston area, I know how disruptive blizzards can be, but I'm lucky enough to have a regional Post Office sorting center a short mush up the road. If they tell me that our products won't get out in time, I'll hold off on shipping.

We make every effort to deliver on time because we know how important that is to our customers. If you ever place an order that we cannot ship due to weather or other extreme conditions, we will let you know and work with you to find either an alternative on our site or a competitor who can meet your needs.

4th of July Shipping

Just a note today to let you know what's happening with the upcoming July 4 holiday. Since the 4th falls on a Monday, any order placed after 2PM on Thursday, June 30, will not be shipped until July 5, unless Saturday Delivery is chosen.

Our partner bakeries will be closed on Sunday, July 3, and Monday, July 4.

Then it's business as usual until Labor Day.

But is it antibacterial?

In a happy Dickensian moment, the good folks over at Pew Research have released their annual survey on how Americans feel about the press. The summary's long and dense, just the thing to dive into on a Monday morning.

Really, Pew guys, Monday morning? I've got to spend a few minutes chafing at Harry Knowles' foaming middleschooler drivel over at Aint It Cool News just to remember that I can read. If you want me, and the rest of weekending America, to decipher sentences such as "By wide margins, more Americans give favorable than unfavorable ratings to their daily newspaper (80%-20%), local TV news (79%-21%), and cable TV news networks (79%-21%), among those able to rate these organizations," then release this stuff on a Tuesday.

This gets Dickensian because I'd planned all along to talk about the genius marketing that catpulted Fox News Channel to the top of the cable news ratings, and mention why your bleach might be lying to you.

Here's a couple of interesting points from the Pew survey: 42% of those surveyed said news organizations "stand up for America"; 40% said news organizations are "too critical of America"--that's kind of their job, you know; and 72% say that news organizations tend to favor one side.

I hope the marketing department at Fox News gets hefty bonuses that let them afford those waterfront mansions that are so popular with the kids, because they've earned them. Getting almost three quarters of America to agree on anything is an accomplishment in itself; doing it to boost ratings is genius.

And they did it with three little words: fair and balanced. When Fox News hit the air on October 7, 1996, CNN already owned the lion's share of cable news viewers. Fox offered a programming alternative by stressing commentary over reporting, and started spreading those three little words around.

Now as someone who once made a living as a journalist, I can tell you that there's no such thing as a "biased" newsroom. Reporters, real reporters who aren't of the Nancy Grace opinion-first school, take their commitment to evenhanded coverage very seriously. Saying that a news channel is "fair and balanced" is akin to saying "water quenches thirst."

And nowhere in that "fair and balanced" statement does Fox suggest that other news outlets are skewing the news. But if you're CNN or the New York Times, you know that somewhere, someone is asking that question, and you can't answer it by saying, "Well we're not."

All you can do is point to the obvious bias in shows like the O'Reilly Factor and say, "How fair and balanced is that guy, Fox?" Which feeds right back into the marketing loop, because now the people who agree with O'Reilly are saying, "You know, Fox is really fair and balanced, because O'Reilly isn't on CNN."

Fox can answer the biased question by pointing to Alan Colmes and Greta van Susteren. Meanwhile poor Wolf Blitzer is trying to do the kind of evenhanded journalism he's done for years and watching his viewers head for Fox.

A couple of years back, one of the bleach companies stuck the word "antibacterial" on their bottles and went as far as to commission a computer-animated TV commercial that featured two bottles of Brand X bleach complaining that their labels didn't have the word "antibacterial." Never mind that all bleach is antibacterial--that's kind of its job, you know--the company that gets out first gets to make the claim.

I'm accepting bids from the likes of Aquafina and Perrier for the rights to "It quenches thirst." And if the research is right, I might change our slogan to "1-800-Bakery.com--Baked in ovens."